


The Quiet Path

by domo (aroceu)



Series: Generosity [8]
Category: Super Junior
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-05
Updated: 2010-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-28 07:31:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aroceu/pseuds/domo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"True love is when," Kyuhyun had been told, "you can sit in silence with someone, in absolute silence, without touching or doing or saying anything, with no distractions at all, and be completely comfortable." But Kyuhyun realizes that it's hard to find such a person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Quiet Path

**Author's Note:**

> For Cheryl

When Kyuhyun was younger, he had been told to get good grades and be a good student and be polite and generous and everything. He hadn't been taught the rules of the world or of life, just the rules of how to be a good person and earn smiles every day.

When Kyuhyun got older, to his adolescent era, his parents sat him down and gave him a talk. It was a talk about romance and girls and something about the birds and the bees. The talk was scarring and made Kyuhyun cringe every time he thought about it, but there was one thing that stuck with him forever-- "True love is when," he had been told, "you can sit in silence with someone, in absolute silence, without touching or doing or saying anything, with no distractions at all, and be completely comfortable."

Kyuhyun didn't think much of any of it; he had never really been interested in girls--or romance for that matter--anyways. So throughout junior high and high school, he focused on his studies and made good friends and was generally happy most of the time.

\--

The day finally came when he saw Donghae and his not-so-foreign girlfriend, Jessica, hugging as they said their goodbyes to each other, as well as many of his other friends who had significant others doing the same. And during the parting of all of these couples, leaving to their separate colleges, the idea of true love finally hit Kyuhyun. Like a bag of rocks, actually, Kyuhyun realized later on as he laid down in his bed on his first day of college. Love, romance... it all seemed so intriguing! Not easy, of course, since Kyuhyun remembered what he had been told. And where was he going to find someone whom he could be completely comfortable with in total silence?

After about a month or so of adjusting to this new environment and getting to know new people--Kyuhyun had always been mildly good at this--he brought the topic up with one of his friends, Heechul.

They were in the cafeteria for lunch and Heechul was ranting about his Biology partner, Hankyung, and how he was weird and foreign and totally incompetent of doing  _anything_  right, when Kyuhyun suddenly blurted out,

"Hyung, have you ever been in love before?"

Heechul stopped his ranting and looked at Kyuhyun, blinking. "Me? In love?"

He thought about it for a moment.

"Not really," he finally replied. "I've dated a few times before, but I can't really say it was love." He shrugged and looked at Kyuhyun inquiringly. "Why?"

"Dating?" Kyuhyun furrowed his eyebrows and looked at Heechul strangely. 

"Yeah, you know. Just going out for dinner or movies or stuff. Kissing, hugging. I think I've had a few boyfriends before." Heechul looked up thoughtfully, before putting his fork down and looking Kyuhyun straight in the eye. "Don't tell me that  _you've_  never dated."

"Well..." Kyuhyun fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat.

Heechul laughed out loud and slapped Kyuhyun on the back, and quite hard for that matter. "Really? A good-looking boy like you has never kissed anyone before?!" He whooped and grinned at Kyuhyun, who was glowering at him.

"Thanks, hyung," he muttered under his breath.

"Well come on then! I'll set you up!" Heechul smirked. "Now tell me who you like: guys or girls?"

\--

The idea of sexuality had never really occured to Kyuhyun, either. He supposed that love was just a  _thing_ , that you just fell in love with someone, no matter what gender they were. Still, when Heechul had asked Kyuhyun this question, Kyuhyun didn't know how to respond, so he decided to go with the popular answer.

"I've got a date for you," Heechul told Kyuhyun one day as he sat down at their lunch table, munching on a steamed bun. "Tonight at seven o'clock, at Nameon Bakery."

"A bakery?" Kyuhyun spluttered. "What are we supposed to do there? And who did you set me up with? Is she nice? Pretty? Gah!" He hit his fists on the table. "Heechul, you can't just  _blindly_  set me up on a date with someone--"

"I didn't." Heechul continued nibbling on his bun, without much thought. "Her name's Seohyun, and yes she's nice and yes she's pretty, and you guys can just get baked goods and talk. Plus, she says that she's been interested in you for a while, but has only been too shy to ask you."

"Oh," Kyuhyun said. He stared at Heechul. "Why was she scared?"

"Because apparently you give off a  _scary demeanor_ . I dunno." Heechul shrugged. "I've never seen it."

\--

But Kyuhyun could see what Seohyun meant when he walked into the bakery later that night, and once Seohyun had caught sight of him, she had jumped a little bit in her seat, and then gave a smile to Kyuhyun, perhaps a little too wide. Kyuhyun smiled back, though it was a small smile and could have been mistaken for being cold.

"I'm sorry if Heechul put you up to this," were the first words he said. "Because if you never really wanted to date me, that's fine--"

"No, no, no!" Seohyun turned pink and shook her head rapidly. "I mean, I do want to, I really want to-- I mean, not too much but I just-- I do want to date you, Heechul oppa didn't make me do anything--"

Kyuhyun watched as Seohyun stumbled over her words before she finally gave up and sighed, slightly pink in the face still. Kyuhyun couldn't help but give her a slight smile of encouragement, even though her wavy hair was kind of annoying, and sat down at the table with her.

"It's okay," he told her. "Let's just try this then, okay?"

\--

The date had gone on smoothly, though Kyuhyun couldn't exactly say he was in  _love_  with Seohyun. At the end, they had discussed this and both agreed to stay friends, much to Heechul's disappointment a few days later.

"But you guys could have been such a cute couple!" he had insisted. "Both so cute and young together! Can't you just imagine it?"

Kyuhyun briefly wondered if Heechul was a closet romantic, since it was rare when Heechul would ever utter the word 'cute'. Kyuhyun also slightly regretted becoming friends with such an upperclassman. He didn't want to be called  _cute_

"Well whatever," Heechul said once he had gotten over the idea of his failing on setting Kyuhyun up on a date. "I'll set you up on another blind date today. And this time, I'll make  _sure_  she's the right girl for you."

"Okay," Kyuhyun said, though in the back of his mind, he hoped that her hair wasn't curly. 

\--

Her hair wasn't curly-- actually, it was quite short. 

"I'm Sooyoung," she said brightly, as Kyuhyun settled into the booth across from her in the restaurant. 

"Kyuhyun," Kyuhyun introduced himself.

"Yeah, I know." Sooyoung's smile shimmered a little bit in the light, though her big eyes stared at Kyuhyun so much that Kyuhyun felt like a bug being inspected underneath a microscope. "You're cute," she told him. "I think I've seen you in the hallways before."

Kyuhyun tried to smile, though in the back of his mind, he bitched about how Sooyoung's big eyes were  _really bothering him._

\--

The rest of the dates that Heechul had tried--and failed--to set Kyuhyun up on didn't go too well either. Well not exactly--they went along fine and Kyuhyun had gained quite a few female friends from all of this. But he couldn't fall in love with any of them. It was either because (1) He had never been interested in girls at all, friendship or relationship wise, or (2) He just couldn't find the right person to fall in love with. No one was ever just right. He complained about each girl in his mind--she had an annoyingly bubbly voice, was too boring, was too normal, didn't care about music (when it was Kyuhyun's  _major_ ) was too tall or short, had no self-confidence whatsoever, was too perfect, was too skinny or too not skinny-- no one ever seemed  _right._  And a part of Kyuhyun was slightly scared that he'd never fall in love.

On his way back from the fourteenth date, Kyuhyun was shuffling back to his dorm at night, staring at the ground and thinking about falling in love, when all of a sudden, something hard hit his face.

He looked up, slightly irritated--the most recently girl had unkempt hair, and even though Kyuhyun wasn't  _that_  shallow, it was just unappealing--and saw a student running over to him, calling out, "Sorry!"

The first thing Kyuhyun noticed about this student was that his voice was low and husky, perhaps even a bit sexy (wait, where did that come from?). Kyuhyun watched as a boy came into view and could see that he was an inch or so shorter than him, with hair falling perfectly over his low-lidded eyes.

"It's okay," Kyuhyun told him, though the annoyance remained in his head a little bit. 

But the boy kept talking.

"No, no, no, I'm really sorry," he told Kyuhyun, "but it's just I'm way too clumsy and I always do stuff like this--gah, it's like Sungmin always says, I always fail! But anyways. Are you bruised? Bleeding? Are you hurt? I'm really, really sorry, I was just trying to study when it just kind of flew out of my hands! Can you believe that? I don't know where it came from, I really don't, I'm sorry--"

"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay!" Kyuhyun interrupted. Did this guy know the concept of shutting up? Seriously.

"Anyways." The boy gave Kyuhyun a bright smile in the darkness. "I'm a senior. My name's Jongwoon. And you are?"

"Kyuhyun," Kyuhyun replied curtly. "Freshman."

"Ah." Jongwoon grinned. "You're tall for a freshman! What are you majoring in?"

"Music." Kyuhyun liked these one-word answers, because they didn't make him blabber on like an idiot, like  _some_  people.

"Oh! Me too!" Jongwoon said excitedly. He turned the book in his hands over--the book he had accidentally hit Kyuhyun with--and showed it to him. "See? Music Theory VII."

"Oh. Cool." 

Kyuhyun didn't know what else to say after this.

But later that night, he couldn't help but feel that Jongwoon was a little bit endearing, if not to mention intriguing. Even if he really didn't know how to be quiet.

\--

Kyuhyun ran into Jongwoon quite a few times the week that followed this encounter, and although Jongwoon was slightly irritating, Kyuhyun didn't mind his presence so much. Jongwoon's hair was straight, he was weird (but a good kind of weird, Kyuhyun had to remind himself), could talk about anything, including (especially?) himself, failed a lot (but cutely) and his body was perfect.

Kyuhyun quickly shook these thoughts out of his head as he went onto his next date that Heechul had set him up with. He wasn't supposed to think about Jongwoon like  _that_

But he couldn't get Jongwoon out of his mind. Really. It was like he had intruded in on Kyuhyun's life and had taken over his mind, completely. Not that Kyuhyun didn't like it or anything. He didn't mind it so much, the same way he didn't mind Jongwoon in general.

With his thoughts stuck on this boy, he didn't say or do much on his date with this girl--whoever she was. What was her name again? Had she even introduced herself at all? Kyuhyun couldn't remember.

Halfway through, the girl across from him threw her napkin down and looked Kyuhyun in the eye. "It's obvious that you don't want to be here with me right now," she said suddenly, breaking him out of his thoughts. "You haven't done anything this whole time."

Kyuhyun blinked and looked at her. "Um."

"If you don't want to be here with me that much, then I don't see what I'm doing here. I'm leaving," the girl said. She got up from the table, and, indeed, left.

Kyuhyun didn't mind that she was rude so much as to the fact that when their waiter came to their table afterwards, he was forced to pay. He didn't mind paying, but just leaving him with the paycheck? Unforgivable.

Once he had paid (and quite a sum, too), he walked back towards college campus. As he made his way back to his dormitory--he didn't know where else he could go--he ran into Jongwoon, who was studying. Again.

"I'm sorry! Are you-- oh, Kyuhyun!" 

Jongwoon smiled as he ran over and saw Kyuhyun again. "This is funny, isn't it?" he said, chuckling as he bent down to pick up the book he had accidentally flung. "Running into you again like this?"

"Ha. Yeah. Funny." Kyuhyun was still a bit bothered with the his annoying date.

Jongwoon's playful expression turned soft, and he looked to him worriedly. "Kyuhyun-ah? What's wrong?" he asked.

"It's..." Kyuhyun considered not telling Jongwoon for a second, for the sake of his privacy, before he realized that it wasn't like there was anyone else he could whine to. Plus, Jongwoon really seemed interested. "It's just that I'm trying to find true love and I keep going on dates, but none of them just... I'm not interested in them, romantically, and none of them are turning out right!" Screw finding true love; he had to find someone he'd actually want to  _be_  with, first.

"Ah." Jongwoon gazed at Kyuhyun, almost sympathetically. "Maybe you shouldn't be  _looking_  for love, Kyuhyun. Maybe you should just let it come to you."

"Maybe," Kyuhyun muttered, although he had never really bee a patient person.

"And think on the bright side!" Jongwoon added. "Now you know all the kinds of girls you  _don't_  want to be with, and that'll help you look for the one that you  _do_  want to be with!"

Kyuhyun couldn't help chuckling. "Yeah," he said, and briefly thought that if he had gone on a date with Jongwoon,  _he_  wouldn't leave Kyuhyun with the bill.

\--

"Heechul," Kyuhyun said the very next day at breakfast, "I don't want to do this anymore."

Heechul looked up from his last-minute cramming for an exam he had that day, and looked at Kyuhyun. "Huh? You don't want to be friends anymore?"

Kyuhyun nearly facepalmed. " _No!_  I mean, I don't want to do this whole dating thing. Anymore." He shifted from foot to foot.

"Oh! I was wondering when you were going to say that!" Heechul put his book down and grinned up at him. "It's hard looking for girls now, anyways. Do you know how many girls are scared of you, Kyuhyunnie? They all think you're really good-looking, but you just terrify them, you know."

"You don't seem so terrified of me," Kyuhyun said, deadpanning.

Heechul just grinned.

"That's because I'm your hyung."

\--

It had been a complete spur of the moment thing--Kyuhyun hadn't known where it had come from, anyways. One moment he was just hanging out with Jongwoon--well, more like they had run into each other for the umpteenth time--when he suddenly interrupted Jongwoon's endless talking and asked him.

"Do you want to go on a date with me?"

And really, Kyuhyun hadn't really thought about his interest with Jongwoon, or just  _guys_  in general--but there was something about the way he felt with Jongwoon, the way he enjoyed his presence, that made these words spill out of his mouth all of a sudden. Kyuhyun blushed once he realized he had said these words.

Jongwoon blinked and looked at him, and for the first time, Kyuhyun feared rejection.

But then he smiled.

"Sure! I'd love to!"

\--

Jongwoon had told Kyuhyun that he could pick the date, and everything about it, which had been a problem for Kyuhyun. He had never done them before, because it had always been Heechul. Kyuhyun didn't know what to do.

So the day ended up being the day after he had asked him, a Thursday, on that evening, at the zoo. Even though Kyuhyun didn't really like zoos. But a part of him suspected that if he was at the zoo with Jongwoon, he probably wouldn't mind them so much.

"Yay! I love animals!" Jongwoon said once they had arrived at the place. "Let's go to the aquarium!"

"Aquarium?" Kyuhyun spluttered, but ended up being dragged along as Jongwoon pulled him around the place, until they found the large brick buildling where all the sea animals were.

Upon going inside, Kyuhyun looked around. It was dark, but lightened by the blue waters through the glass along the walls, mildly bright. But not as bright as Jongwoon's smile, Kyuhyun thought to himself, before shaking these thoughts out of his mind.

"Look! Sea turtles!" Jongwoon said suddenly, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. He pointed into a nearby glass tank, where large sea turtles were swimming around. "I have three land turtles back at home," he told Kyuhyun, grinning. "Maybe I could show you them some time."

"Yeah." Kyuhyun nodded. The turtles were cute (but again, not as cute as Jongwoon--especially when he included the fact that he actually owned a few of the turtles.)

"Ooh! Otters!" Again, Jongwoon was distracted as he ran off to the side, peering through a glass where otters were swimming around too. He giggled as one passed by, flicking his whiskers towards the glass. "Look Kyuhyun-ah! It's you!"

Kyuhyun stared at the otter. "I don't see the resemblance," he said blankly.

Jongwoon just giggled again and pinched one of Kyuhyun's cheeks. "I do!"

\--

Later that night, once the zoo had closed, the two boys walked back towards their campus. Kyuhyun couldn't help but feel shy all of a sudden, as he turned to look to Jongwoon.

"I had a great time tonight," he told him, and it was true; he did. This date was better than all the dates he had gone on with girls before. And he had gone on a  _lot_  of dates.

"Me too." Jongwoon's smile shimmered brightly under the light of the moon. "We should do this again some time."

"Yeah, um..." Kyuhyun glanced ahead, where his dorm building was in the distance. "I guess I have to go now, since you have to go in that direction." He jerked his thumb to the left a little. "So... bye."

"Bye!" Jongwoon grinned.

But before he left, he leaned over and pecked Kyuhyun on the mouth, turned red, and then ran off.

Kyuhyun felt his lips with his fingers. Jongwoon's lips had been sweet, soft, and slightly chapped. It was Kyuhyun's first kiss, but Kyuhyun didn't regret it at all.

So, smiling, he walked off with a fluttering feeling in his stomach.

\--

They went on a few dates after that, which both Jongwoon and Kyuhyun enjoyed immensely. Kyuhyun found that he really liked Jongwoon, in a different way he had liked anyone else, and although he wasn't sure if this was true love or not, he could get used to this.

Of course, Jongwoon's endless chatter annoyed Kyuhyun to no end--but it annoyed him in a different way, because if this part of Jongwoon had changed, Kyuhyun would be even more annoyed. Nobody was perfect, and Jongwoon certainly wasn't--but he was perfect enough for Kyuhyun, and despite Kyuhyun's mildly short temper, he was okay with the moments when he really felt like hitting the other boy.

After several more outings, Kyuhyun asked Jongwoon if he wanted to be his boyfriend for the first time; and, of course, Jongwoon had said yes. Kyuhyun didn't feel a tingling or any sort of elation, though some place in the middle of his chest felt quite warm as he leaned over and kissed Jongwoon on the lips. He found that he quite liked kissing--it was fun, somewhat sensual, but gave Kyuhyun such feelings of electricity all over his body that Kyuhyun couldn't help deepen it more, and more, and more, until it was almost like he was in heaven.

Kyuhyun didn't need anyone, he didn't need any girl, or any other guy for that matter (funnily enough, Jongwoon was and always had been the only guy he had ever been attracted to.  _Only_ . Did that mean he was Jongwoon-sexual then?). Jongwoon was just enough, more than enough--and even though his habits were a bit... different, Kyuhyun occasionally found them endearing. Occasionally.

But he could definitely live with them.

\--

Several months into their relationship, Kyuhyun decided that the whole kissing and teasing wasn't enough anymore, and he wanted to go _further_ . Sex had never been the most appealing thing to him--after all, the things his parents had said to him about it were still fresh and vivid in his mind--but he wouldn't mind having it with Jongwoon. He wouldn't mind doing anything with Jongwoon. Actually, the thought of being naked with him was... quite appealing, to be honest.

So Kyuhyun told Jongwoon, and on a night that hadn't been predetermined by either of them, they finally did it. It was all in lust and pleasure and instinct, but Kyuhyun found that even though it wasn't  _completely_  perfect (it was actually really awkward, and Jongwoon had blushed so hard that Kyuhyun had wondered if he had forgotten to breathe), it was perfect enough for both of them.

And when they were done, the two of them had laid in bed, staring at the ceiling. Neither of them said anything, both of their breaths had quieted down, and they were laying here in the dark, next to each other, in the silence (and Jongwoon had  _finally_  stopped talking.)

Kyuhyun thought it would be awkward, the same way their awkward sex had been, well, awkward. But it wasn't, at all. He could sit here for ages, just with Jongwoon's presence, just resting and breathing right next to him, and he'd be perfectly settled. He didn't have to touch or hold or kiss Jongwoon, because all of this was enough. All of this was the way it should be.

And that was when Kyuhyun knew.

\--

"I think," Kyuhyun said, and then shook his head and started over again. "I mean, I know. I know. That I love you."

Jongwoon, who was sitting on the park bench, snorted maturely and didn't look up from his textbook. "Well duh."

"I mean," Kyuhyun said again. "I just thought I'd say it to you. So you knew."

"Well I do." Jongwoon looked up. "I love you too."

"Good." Kyuhyun smiled.

"Actually." Jongwoon put his book down and looked at Kyuhyun thoughtfully. "I do  _love_  you, but that doesn't mean I love every little thing about you. Like, sometimes when I invite you to go out, you say no just because you're too busy playing computer games, or like other times you just try to provoke me just to get mad at you so you have an excuse to say sarcastic things. And other times when you're with Heechul sometimes you two gang up on me and you say you don't like my breath in the mornings because it smells like poop, and--"

"Oh, just shut up," Kyuhyun said with a grin, and pulled him into a quiet kiss.

\--

"It was totally me! Give me credit! You two are totally together because of me!" Heechul said when Kyuhyun told him the news. "You found true love because of me!"

"What did you do?" Kyuhyun gave him a look. "All you did was send me on a bunch of dates. Which were stupid, by the way. That one girl with the funny eyebrows keeps calling me whenever Jongwoon and I are in the middle of--"

"Hey!" Jongwoon interrupted, turning bright red.

"Yeah, but if it wasn't for that one date, you would have never met Jongwoon," Heechul said pointedly.

Jongwoon shot him a look. "I like to believe," he said, "that true love will always find a way,  _hyung_."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Heechul waved Jongwoon aside before returning to his cellphone. "So Siwonnie, how's school..."

"He's a closet romantic," Kyuhyun whispered into Jongwoon's ear, and Jongwoon giggled and pecked him on the cheek.


End file.
